Meta and OpenAI have consistently grabbed headlines in last few months, all thanks to the ‘talent war’ between the two.
Now, Mark Zuckerberg has made yet another significant announcement. Meta has named Shengjia Zhao as chief scientist of its new Superintelligence Lab. Interestingly, Zhao is a co-creator of ChatGPT and a key developer of GPT models at OpenAI.
Zuckerberg also called Zhao an important force in shaping his company’s long-term vision for AGI. Meta’s AI talent poaching has already raised quite a few eyebrows in the tech world, and this latest development will again spark a fresh debate.
Alongside Zhao, the lab will be headed by Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who previously served as the CEO of Scale AI. The Meta Superintelligence Lab will focus on new research areas and will be independent of the existing FAIR laboratory, led by AI pioneer Yann LeCun.
Previously, Zhao worked for OpenAI, where he helped develop several landmark AI models, such as GPT-4, GPT-4.1, and GPT-o3. His research focuses on the dynamics of large-scale training and reasoning capabilities. Zhao has introduced new paradigms for scaling AI models and is considered one of the most desirable candidates in today's AI talent market.
Meta's hiring of Zhao signals its progress toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). The company has been ramping up its investments in foundational AI research and actively recruiting top talent from organizations such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. Meta has also been significantly expanding its AI team, with reports indicating that it has offered several key researchers deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
After a quiet reception following the release of Llama 4, generally considered to lag behind OpenAI’s GPT-4, this appointment clears the way for establishing the new Superintelligence Lab.
The new lab is part of an aggressive program to produce future-ready models with long-term capabilities and open research paradigms. This competition has intensified internationally, with Zhao among the many high-profile researchers who have recently left OpenAI for Meta.
Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed concerns that the moves may bring a cultural shift. DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, among others, said that this was a ‘catch-up’ move of Meta rather than genuine innovation.
The Meta Superintelligence Lab was officially launched on June 30, 2025. Its primary goal is to integrate advanced model research, infrastructure, and the company's future AI systems into a unified entity.
Alexandr Wang will direct the lab's strategy, while Zhao will oversee the scientific agenda. Additionally, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman has joined Meta to help develop AI-powered consumer products in collaboration with the lab.
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Shengjia Zhao's appointment is a significant moment in the global race for artificial general intelligence. Under his leadership, Meta will now compete more directly than ever with OpenAI and DeepMind. The company has also indicated that research from the Superintelligence Lab may be open-sourced in the future, further highlighting Meta's commitment to the public release of AI models, such as Llama.
This strategic move hints at both Meta's strengthening position as an AI competitor and its readiness to shape the future of superintelligent systems. With Zhao leading the scientific efforts, Meta's Superintelligence Lab could become a dominant force in driving the next generation of AI breakthroughs.